Milner, Gavin confirmed for Corvette Shanghai entry

Milner, Gavin confirmed for Corvette Shanghai entry

The FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Shanghai entry list is out, boasting a record 35 cars for the event and confirmation of Corvette Racing’s drivers for its one-off GTE Pro appearance next month.

Corvette Racing’s sole C7.R is only addition to the entry from Fuji, the GM manufacturer team having confirmed its entry at Shanghai earlier this year. It will be the team’s first appearance in a six-hour WEC race since the 6 Hours of COTA back in 2014, which ran as part of a double-bill with IMSA. Driving the car will be factory drivers Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin.

Elsewhere on the entry, there are a few driver changes in the other three classes.

Dragonspeed BR1 (Image by LAT)

In LMP1 there’s a TBA in the ByKolles ENSO CLM seat filled by Super GT ace James Rossiter last time out at Fuji, and the addition of Renger Van Der Zande in DragonSpeed’s BR1. At the Shanghai meeting, the Petit Le Mans winner will be racing alongside full-season driver Ben Hanley and returning Aussie James Allen, who is back for a second LMP1 start.

LMP2 sees two driver changes. At TDS Racing, ex-Audi LMP1 star Loic Duval rejoins the WEC field after missing out on Fuji due to his DTM commitments; there he was replaced by ex-F1 man Jean-Eric Vergne.

The third Larbre Ligier seat has also changed once again, ELMS regular Enzo Guibbert getting the call-up to compete with Jack Leconte’s team, driving in place of Keiko Ihara who took the wheel in the team’s rotating chair earlier this month in Japan.

In the GTE Am ranks, the No. 88 Dempsey Proton Porsche sees Satoshi Hoshino out after his Fuji drive, his seat alongside Giorgio Roda and Matteo Cairoli currently a TBA.

The only other thing to note here is the lack of a CEFC TRSM Ginetta on the entry. The Chinese-flagged team, which sat out Spa, competed at Le Mans and then sat out Silverstone and Fuji, is not on the provisional list this time. RACER understands, though, that the effort to put the now AER-engined G60-LT-P1 back in action is still ongoing.

Stephen Kilbey

UK-based Stephen Kilbey is RACER.com's FIA World Endurance Championship correspondent, and is also Deputy Editor of Dailysportscar.com
He has a first-class honours degree in Sports Journalism and is a previous winner of the UK Guild of Motoring Writers Sir William Lyons Award.